Concert stampede leaves 6 dead, over 50 hurt
CORINALDO, ITALY >> Teenagers panicked before a rap concert at a jammed Italian disco, setting off a stampede that killed five of them and a mother who had brought her daughter to the event, authorities and survivors said. Fifty-three people were reported injured, including 13 in very serious condition.
Video on state TV RaiNews24 showed scores of teenagers rushing out a door and surging toward a low wall near an exit at the Blue Lantern disco in the central Italian town of Corinaldo, near Ancona on the Adriatic coast. The barrier then gives way and a cascade of teenagers tumble over it, falling on top of each other.
Several survivors said panic spread through the late-night crowd after someone unleashed an irritant spray. Investigators said they were checking those reports.
The bodies of the trampled victims were all found near a low wall, Ancona Firefighters Cmdr. Dino Poggiali told Sky TG24 News. State radio said most of the dead had their skulls crushed in the melee.
The victims — three girls and two boys — ranged in age from 14 to 16 and the mother who was killed was 39, said Col. Cristian Carrozza, commander of the Ancona province Carabinieri paramilitary police.
The stampede occurred shortly after 1 a.m., less than 30 minutes before the concert by Italian rapper Sfera Ebbasta was to begin.
Authorities said organizers had sold far too many tickets for the space. Ancona Chief Prosecutor Monica Garulli told reporters that about 1,400 tickets were sold but the disco was only able to hold about 870 people.
Later, Premier Giuseppe Conte, who visited the scene, said the disco had three rooms but inexplicably only used one for the concert, and it only holds 469 people.
The woman who was killed, Eleanora Girolimini, had four children and had accompanied her 11-year-old daughter to the concert, her husband, Paolo, told reporters. The girl was treated for a knee injury.
Outside the hospital where the bodies were brought, he lashed out at the event’s organizers, saying that many at the event were drunk.
“Four children now are without their mother, and one of them is still nursing,” he said. “It was way overcrowded and alcohol abounded.”
ANSA said hospital doctors treating the injured said some survivors had burns apparently caused by an irritant spray.
An 18-year-old survivor, who left the hospital in a wheelchair due to a leg injury, was asked by RAINew24 about the spray. She replied that whatever it was, it left her and others unable to breathe, and people started to panic and flee.
Doctors at Ancona’s main hospital said the most critically injured from the concert, all between 14 and 20 years old, suffered cranial and chest traumas, while others had arm or leg injuries.
Sfera Ebbasta wrote on Twitter that he was “deeply pained” by the tragedy, thanked rescuers and offered his “affection and support” to the families of the dead and the injured. Out of respect to them, he cancelled some promotional appearances.
The rapper added he wanted everyone to “to stop and think how dangerous and stupid it is to use pepper spray in a discotheque.”
Italian high schools, which are usually open on Saturdays, were closed this weekend for the Dec. 8 national holiday, which made it more likely for teenagers to attend such a late concert.